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LANDFIRE Connects the Dots

Using LANDFIRE to investigate your landscape provides comprehensive, up-to-date and standardized data that can advance our understanding of current ecosystem conditions and historical disturbances, while also supporting informed natural resource management decisions.

Based on current LANDFIRE Products, these landscape assessments provide a starting point for future analysis and can help users understand the context of current ecosystem conditions and the role of disturbances within the historical context of these landscapes.

Getting Started

  1. Click the landscape of interest
  2. Click the link to the external dashboard
  3. Start exploring the individual assessment

Each assessment was created individually and may reflect the specific needs of the assessment partners.

Why LANDFIRE?

LANDFIRE provides complete, landscape-scale products using standardized legends and methodologies. These products are regularly updated and including historical information including Biophysical Settings Products, Historic Fire Regime and Historic Disturbance Products.

Why Does This Matter?

Natural resource professionals need versatile, current and continuous data to support their analysis decisions. These assessments are just a sample of what is possible when LANDFIRE products are creatively applied to natural resource questions. Further assistance with assessments can be obtained by contacting Nature Conservancy Ecologist, Randy Swaty. For technical questions about LANDFIRE products reach out to the LANDFIRE Helpdesk.

Example questions to consider:

  • How have regional fire regimes changed over time? (Step 1: Navigate to landscape assessment of interest, Step 2: Explore “Past” tab see example).
  • What broad vegetation trends are occurring within a landscape? (Step 1: Navigate to landscape assessment of interest, Step 2: Explore “Comparing” tab see example).
  • What are the most dominant lifeforms and how does this compare with local knowledge of a specific area? (Step 1: Navigate to landscape assessment of interest, Step 2: Explore “Present” tab see example).

Landscape Assessment Process

Creating a preliminary landscape assessment can be achieved with a little experience working in R Studio, QGIS, GitHub and Quarto.

While each assessment was customized for a specific intended audience, the general order of operations remains consistent throughout. The following is a simple diagram that describes the two major processes used to create each assessment. By integrating automation where possible, the process of creating an assessment from start-to-finish can be achieved in under 2-hours.

Do you want to see your landscape in a similar format? Get in touch.

Step 1

Flow chart with 4 steps, listed from step 1 to step 4: step 1: Obtain shapefile for area of interest, 2: download LANDFIRE data, clip to area of interest, 3. build attributes, calculate acres / BpS acres / EVT, etc. 4. Write files i.e. tiffs, .csv & make maps

Step 2


Flow chart with 4 steps, listed from step 1 to step 4: step 1: create prject in R studio, link to GitHub, 2: import data, maps to web report directory. 3: customize, run check Quarto files (incl. all data visualizations). 4: build, deploy website to GitHub, QA/QC

LANDFIRE Products Used

LANDFIRE

LANDFIRE (Landscape Fire and Resource Management Planning Tools) is a shared program between the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service Fire and Aviation branch and the U.S. Department of the Interior. LANDFIRE provides 25+ national landscape-scale geo-spatial products, 950 vegetation models, and a suite of tools that support all-lands planning, management, and operations. Included in the product suite are current and historic conditions including ecosystem dynamics models that can be used for conservation, fire planning, and landscape management decisions.

Principal Partners

U.S. Department of the Interior & U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service

Major Partners

U.S. DOI USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center; The Nature Conservancy (TNC)*; National Gap Analysis Program (GAP); USDA FS Rocky Mountain Research Station (RMRS); USDA Forest Service Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA); U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM-AIM); National Land Cover Database (NLCD); Natural Resources Conservation Service – National Resources Inventory (NRCS-NRI)

* TNC is a Major Partner in the LANDFIRE Program supported by a cooperative agreement through USDA Forest Service. TNC’s LANDFIRE Team works closely with the LANDFIRE Business Leads, program staff, and other partners to provide support to LANDFIRE and the user community.

Questions? LANDFIRE is here to help

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